Femto Forum agrees on one interoperability standard

The Femto Forum announced it has reached consensus on the standard way femtocells should connect with the mobile core network. The agreement is welcomed news as a number of vendors have come up with their own standards and mobile operator femtocell trials are heating up.

With interoperability a key factor in their success, femtocells have been deployed in trial networks without an agreed standard. However, vendors are meeting this week to hammer out the finer details of the agreed interfaces, with plans to send submissions as early as next week to the 3GPP, where there are already three work items in progress related to femtocells. By agreeing on the interfaces, the Forum believes it has removed one of the barriers that have discouraged some operators from making the leap from trial to soft commercial launches.

"We've enabled operators to move forward faster on their deployments," said Simon Saunders, chairman of the Femto Forum. "For many operators, until they have a clear path toward standardization, they won't take that first deployment step. So we've set out a road map, and now more operators are willing to take that step."

For more:
- check out this article [1] from Unstrung
- read this report [2] from Cellular News

Related stories:
Femto Forum adds new members. See this article on the Femto Forum [3] 
Motorola, Netgear announce femtocell products. Take a look at this article about Motorola and Netgear's femtocell gear [4]